Tulsa, city, Osage and Tulsa counties, seat (1907) of Tulsa county, northeastern Oklahoma, U.S., situated on the Arkansas River. It originated in 1836 as a settlement of Creek Indians who named it for their former town in Alabama. White settlement began after the arrival in 1882 of the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway. The discovery of oil in nearby Red Fork (1901) and Glenn Pool (1905) launched the mid-continent oil and gas boom, and phenomenal growth followed. Hundreds of oil companies now have plants and offices in the city, which was the site of the International Petroleum Exposition (held 1965–80). The main economic activity is based on petroleum—exploration, drilling, production, refining, and research. The aviation-aerospace industry also is important to Tulsa’s economy, which includes a wide range of manufacturing and wholesale distribution activities. The city serves as the commercial and financial centre of a rich agricultural area and is the national headquarters of the U.S. Jaycees.

City hall in Tulsa, Okla.

Nmajdan

The municipally owned Spavinaw Water System brings clear water from the Ozark foothills, 70 miles (110 km) away. Surrounded by man-made lakes and reservoirs, Tulsa, with the nearby port of Catoosa on the Verdigris River, is the head of navigation for the Arkansas River Navigation System. It thus has access via the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers to the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico and to barge transportation, complementing airlines, railroads, and truck lines.

Thirty-five blocks of the original city centre, largely inhabited by African Americans, were burned during race riots in May and June of 1921; 300 people are believed to have died. (The John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park, which opened in 2010, commemorates the riots and honours Franklin, who grew up in Tulsa and became a noted historian and civil rights leader.) In the following decade Tulsa’s downtown was rebuilt, and the city is now renowned for its many buildings in the Art Deco style, including the Pythian Building, Union Depot, and the Phillips Oil “Philcade.” The city’s cultural institutions include the Gilcrease Museum (1949), the University of Tulsa (1894), and Oral Roberts University (1965). Inc. 1898. Pop. (2000) 393,049; Tulsa Metro Area, 859,532; (2010) 391,906; Tulsa Metro Area, 937,478.

Learn More in these related articles:

in Oklahoma

...rural population of the area. Norman, seat of the University of Oklahoma and site of the major state psychiatric hospital, is also a bedroom community for Oklahoma City and Midwest City commuters. Tulsa, a former Creek Indian village in the Sandstone Hills region, grew slowly until the discovery of oil nearby. Refineries and facilities for manufacturing and distributing oil-field supplies have...

constituent state of the United States of America. It borders Colorado and Kansas to the north, Missouri and Arkansas to the east, Texas to the south and west, and New Mexico to the west of its Panhandle region. In its land and its people, Oklahoma is a state of contrast and of the unexpected. The...

Muskogean-speaking North American Indian tribe that originally occupied a huge expanse of the flatlands of what are now Georgia and Alabama. There were two divisions of Creeks: the Muskogee (or Upper Creeks), settlers of the northern Creek territory; and the Hitchiti and Alabama, who had the same...

Britannica Web sites

Sometimes called the "oil capital of the world," Tulsa lies on the banks of the Arkansas River in the heart of rich petroleum and natural gas fields. When oil was struck at Red Fork across the river on June 25, 1901, Tulsa citizens were quick to invite oil men to make their homes and business headquarters in the city. The oil men came, followed by a real-estate boom and the growth of banking and business organizations. Soon Tulsa was a great operating center of the Mid-Continent field and Oklahoma’s second largest city.